wledge is experience." For the moment, but it is probably
not for long, we have the advantage in the knowledge bred of
experience.

The German comes from the forest, loves the forest. "Kein Yolk ist so
innig mit seinem Wald erwachsen wie das Deutsche, keines liebt den
Wald so sehr." ("No nation has grown up so at one with its forests as
have the Germans; no other nation loves its forests as do they.") He
walks, and meditates, and sings in the forest, and nowadays goes to
the forest with his skis, his snow-shoes, and his sled. Our great
games are, many of them, personal conflicts, and attended by some
personal risk, and demanding both discipline in preparing for them and
severe discipline in the playing. Our love of the aleatory, of betting
our belongings, our powers, our persons even, against life, is not
commonly alive in Germany. The Germans are only just emerging into
safety and confidence in themselves, and beginning cautiously to agree
with us that

"He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all."

From these sombre forests came a race who still find it lonely to be
alone, and they herd together still for safety as of old, and have no
love of physical speculation. They are daring in thought and theory,
but cautious in physical and personal matters. An office stool
followed by a pension contents all too many men in Germany.

"Reden, Handeln, Tun und Wandeln
Zeigt der Menschen Wesen nicht.
Was im Herzen sie im Stillen
Fest verschliessen, stumm verhuellen,
Ist ihr richtigs Angesicht."

An overwhelming majority of Germans believe that this is man's real
portrait; an overwhelming majority of Americans would not even
understand it.

The German army is the antidote to this lack of
physical discipline, this lack of strenuous physical life. The army
takes the place of our West, of our games, of our sports; just as it
takes the place of England's colonies and public schools and games and
sports. When looked at in this way, when its double duty is
recognized, the enormous cost of it is not so material. The expense of
the German army is not greater than our armies, plus what we spend for
games and sport and colonial adventure.

Germany has 4,570 miles of frontier to guard, to begin with, and her
total area is 208,780 square miles, or an area one fourth less than
that of our State of Texas, with a population per square mile of
310.4.